A roundup of must-reads to add to your design library.

In his most personal book yet, British designer William Yeoward takes readers on a photo-filled tour of his London apartment and his Cotswolds country home. It's impossible to resist the charms of his conversational, enlightening prose and Gavin Kingcome's images of the sophisticated interiors and garden spaces. The book, which also showcases Yeoward's tabletop talents, can be seen as a how-to, but it's ever so much more fun to think of it as a why-not.

(Cico Books, $35)

REVIEW BY LINDA SHERBERT

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

2 of 11

Philip Friedman/Studio D

American Fashion Designers at Home

Showcased in this residential runway show are the homes of more than 100 members of the Council of Fashion Designers of America. Readers enjoy front-row seats for viewing private dwellings such as Carolina Herrera's mid-nineteenth-century Upper East Side townhouse, Donna Karan's Caribbean beachfront compound, Oscar de la Renta's clapboard Colonial house and CFDA President Diane von Furstenberg's estate on a former Connecticut tobacco farm. The interiors fit their owners as surely as a couture ensemble.

(Assouline, $65)

REVIEW BY STEPHEN SINGERMAN

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

3 of 11

Philip Friedman/Studio D

Antiquaires: Paris Flea Markets

Even in the digital age of double-click antiquing, you can't beat the real thing. Paris' Marché aux Puces de Saint-Ouen inspired late-great designers such as Christian Dior, Coco Chanel and Madeleine Castaing, and today more than 150,000 treasure-seekers visit on weekends. Author Laure Verchère and photographer Laziz Hamani weave through market corridors, profiling the vendors and showing their wares. This picture-packed guide is sure to delight those who revel in the hunt.

(Assouline, $75)

REVIEW BY STEPHEN SINGERMAN

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

4 of 11

Philip Friedman/Studio D

Living Architecture: Greatest American Houses of the 20th Century

Poetic visuals distinguish a curated collection of twenty architectural marvels. The portraits were shot by a team of first-rate photographers, helmed by Lucy Gilmour, who was photo director at House & Garden during co-author Dominique Browning's editorship. The houses include the usual suspects—Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater and, featured on the book's cover, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's Illinois Farnsworth House—but also lesser-known works. Whether familiar or fresh, by Neutra or newbie, these structures still inspire.

(Assouline, $75)

REVIEW BY STEPHEN SINGERMAN

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

5 of 11

Lara Robby/Studio D

Farrow & Ball: Living With Colour

Seductive palettes of come-hither color suffuse this book about the iconic British maker of paints and wallpapers. Author Ros Byam Shaw, a former features editor at The World of Interiors, explores English city and country houses bedecked in Farrow & Ball's rich and subtle collections, offering keen insights into what we'd learn if walls could talk.

(Ryland Peters & Small, $40)

REVIEW BY STEPHEN SINGERMAN

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

6 of 11

Lara Robby/Studio D

The Hermès Scarf: History and Mystique

You can almost feel the cool, smooth squares of silk flowing through your fingers as you turn the pages of Nadine Coleno's chic coffee table tribute to Hermès' vibrant scarves. Since introducing these meticulously silk-screened works of art in 1937, the Parisian luxury goods firm has created over 2,000 designs, from famed equestrian motifs to contemporary abstracts. You can't help but pick your favorites.

(Thames & Hudson, $95)

REVIEW BY LINDA SHERBERT

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

7 of 11

Philip Friedman/Studio D

Lars Bolander's Scandinavian Design

Swedish designer and shop owner Lars Bolander is the go-to person for Scandinavian decor in America. With his unerring eye and expertise in antiques, he can finesse anything from Gustavian elegance to rustic charm. Bolander also reveals how to incorporate traditional elements into modern design. Everything in these houses—from white or pale gray furniture to fancifully painted walls—defies the darkness of the region's long winters. As author Heather Smith MacIsaac writes, "it's all summer, all the time."

(Vendome Press, $40)

REVIEW BY LINDA SHERBERT

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

8 of 11

Lara Robby/Studio D

Syrie Maugham

Fearless talent distinguished the life of Syrie Maugham, whose all-white interiors from between the world wars remain iconic. Many great designers—Billy Baldwin, Michael Taylor, Albert Hadley and others—took inspiration from the English decorator, a prodigious talent too often remembered simply because of her marriage to writer W. Somerset Maugham. Historian Pauline C. Metcalf distills Syrie's glamorous brand of magic. As the legendary Baldwin wrote, "everything she touched seemed to spring to life."

(Acanthus Press, $75)

REVIEW BY LINDA SHERBERT

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

9 of 11

Lara Robby/Studio D

Jack Lenor Larsen's LongHouse

Textile designer Jack Lenor Larsen, also a plantsman, founded LongHouse Reserve in East Hampton, N.Y., and dwells there amidst works by the likes of Willem de Kooning and Dale Chihuly. In the book's foreword, playwright Edward Albee, who lives nearby, uses words like "paradise" and "perfection" to describe the sixteen-acre garden and sculpture park. Molly Chappellet's 220 photographs and brief text show how Larsen has woven art and landscape into a living tapestry.

(Chronicle Books, special edition, $75; $50)

REVIEW BY LINDA SHERBERT

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

10 of 11

Lara Robby/Studio D

Cottage and Cabin

Linda Leigh Paul explores forty woodland and waterfront getaways, from a wood-and-glass-clad birding cabin with views of the Puget Sound to a dressed-down cottage high on the cliffs of Martha's Vineyard. All exemplify what Paul terms "vacation architecture"—that is, escapes in harmony with their natural surroundings, "created from pure joy."

(Universe, $35)

REVIEW BY STEPHEN SINGERMAN

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

11 of 11

Lara Robby/Studio D

The Decorative Carpet

Training its spotlight on the indispensable but often intimidating world of furnishings underfoot, this volume features rooms imbued with floor flourish by a who's who of design superstars—everyone from David Easton and Thomas Jayne to Bunny Williams and Vicente Wolf. Carpeting connoisseur Doris Leslie Blau lays the groundwork in a fine foreword.

A Part of Hearst Digital Media
Veranda participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites.